The Boston Celtics suffered their worst loss of the season Saturday night with a 30-point defeat to the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena.

The C’s notched a pair of double-digit wins in Boston to begin this Eastern Conference finals series, and maybe they read a little too much of the praise people were bestowing upon them over the 3-day break between Game 2 and Game 3.

The following comment from Celtics guard Terry Rozier would suggest that they did.

“We needed to get our butts whipped, come back to reality.” #Celtics guard Terry Rozier after a 116-86 game 3 loss to the #Cavs.

The Celtics lost Game 3 to the Milwaukee Bucks by 24 in Round 1. They didn’t respond with a Game 4 win in Milwaukee but managed to win two of the last three games of the series at home to reach the second round.

Boston has homecourt advantage in this series, too, but the Bucks didn’t have a superstar as talented as LeBron James. Cleveland is a much tougher opponent for that simple fact.

Legendary Celtics radio play-by-play man Johnny Most often stressed the importance of Game 4, and there’s no doubt Monday night’s matchup will be the pivotal contest of the series.

The Celtics will be in trouble if they don’t respond to Saturday’s blowout and lose Game 4 because the Cavs would have all the momentum, in addition to the best player in the series. And we know James isn’t afraid of playing at TD Garden. Many of the best performances of his playoff career have come in that building.NESN.com